How To Goal Set For The New Year

I hope you all had a lovely new year and you’re ready to get back on track from the large amount of food, partying and firework extravaganza. The first week of the new year is always a special one, its the last few days before the school starts again and the time of year when we’re most conscious of our self development. Let’s take this time and use it to create, plan and prioritise our intentions to make all 365 (now 361) days of the year a productive one. This is something I certainly want to commit to in 2016, making it a mindful and engaging year for sure.

Now I’ve got you pumped up about setting goals for yourself, the question now is how to do so? Well, I have found that the most effective goals have been the ones close to my heart. A lot of the time we write down a bunch of things and end up going absolutely crazy listing 30 targets and only accomplishing 5. So, I’ve broken it down for you into these 6 steps, that will help you in setting your intentions for the year and keeping yourself motivated to do so. Now, lets get goal setting!

1. Reflect

A yearly reflection is a great mindfulness exercise in which you uncover the lessons and growth that the past year has taught you. It gives you the room to slow down, appreciate the big and small moments that made up your life in the past year, and conclusions about which kinds of things make you happy and which don’t. The best reflection exercise is to take a quiet moment for yourself, close your eyes, to take multiple deep breathes and to ask yourself a few conscious questions with the intention of digging deeper into your core.

A few questions to help with your reflection process can be:

What new things did I discover about myself?

What the biggest problem I solved?

Which new skills did I learn?

What little things did I most enjoy during day-to-day life?

Did any parts of myself or my life do a complete 180 this year?

What major goal did I lay foundations for?

Which worries turned out to be completely unnecessary?

This is a great foundation to setting your goals for the new year as it gives you the time to step back from your life to reconsider where you’ve been and where you want to go.

2. Prioritise

We have the tendency to brainstorm like crazy and list 50 goals that we want to accomplish in one year! I can totally understand that you want to go all out and completely rock this coming year, don’t we all! That energy is incredible, and very much the opposite when we reflect back and notice we only accomplished 5 goals. But guuuurl/boooyyy, I got you covered:

The best thing to do is to prioritise 5 things that have a huge meaning to you, for instance:1. Family 1. Family 2. Health 2. Relationship with a higher power 3. Friends 3. Health 4. Blog 4. International relationships 5. School 5. Career

3. List

After a pause to reflect and a pause to prioritise it’s time to dig deep and list your desires. A great trick I learnt when setting my goals is to use the S.M.A.R.T. formula. This gives a great outline to set goals that are:

S – Specific (or Significant).

M – Measurable (or Meaningful).

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

R – Relevant (or Rewarding).

T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

To go into more depth of this formula, an example could be, instead of having “to be more active” as a goal, it’s more powerful to use the SMART goal “to be able to run 5km by March 1st.” Or “to drink more water” changes to “To drink 2L of water by 9pm every day”. I notice that the more specific I am with my goals, the more the goal comes to life!

Remember to always write down for yourself why you have chosen those goals. The why power will get you through the boring how and is the most powerful tool for success. Knowing the reason behind a certain goal is a great reminder for yourself and can motivate you to spend that beloved time into achieving it. It will also help you know whether or not you will stick with it and make that side of the vision more clear.

4. Action

Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation to focus on the tools needed to reach your intention, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life. Now that you have your goals sets, it’s time to note down how you will achieve them. When asking this question, write down 3 ways to achieve that goal. Simply ask yourself:

To achieve this goal I will….

Family – … Brainstorm 3 events every month to do together
… Clock in at least an hour of electronic-free family time every day
… Discuss what everyone’s monthly goals are

Blog – … Provide valuable content for my readers in blog posts and YouTube videos
… Build relationships with other bloggers and online entrepreneurs
… Invest more time and love into my website

School – … Seek weekly help from teachers and peers
… Plan in daily time for homework
… Read 3 literature books outside of the school lists/norm

5. Create a mantra

I don’t mean for you to go all spiritual as I know not everyone is in tune with their spiritual side yet, but what I mean with a mantra is a affirmative statement for yourself when you are feeling unmotivated and need a spark to fall back on.

When I feel like giving up, I will tell myself…

… I am grateful for the journey I have encountered on so far, but I will never stop learning and growing, because life has so much more to offer than to stop now! Keep going strong!

…. You can do this! Setbacks are important lessons that will make you stronger with every step you take moving forward. Keep going and you will be so incredibly happy you did!

6. Share

Share your goals with your surroundings and encourage them to do the same. Supporting each other and checking in on how the person is doing are great accountability trick to get you motivated to reach them. Or even better – pick one or two to work on together!

Pin it, baby!

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” -Tony Robbins

Yasmin Wilnis founded YasminWilnis.com as a place where the youth can find comfort in their being, and discover their inner souls on a never-ending journey to greatness. Be inspired and share the love!

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Yasmin Wilnis brings young energy and a community feeling to personal development while inspiring her readers to discover their identities. She also loves sushi, is obsessed with Ellen Degeneres and sees Peter Pan as her spirit animal! Link above to found out more about this young online influencer!